In densely populated urban areas, parking lots, garages, and other similar parking structures are necessary to fit all the cars that arrive at all the businesses and residences. Often, parking is a time-consuming, frustrating, and expensive experience for consumers. Operators of these parking structures can compete for parking business through several factors, some of which are within their control, and others which are not. These factors include the location of the structure relative to desirable establishments, ease of parking, safety, and price, among other things. One of the more easily controlled factors is price, and sometimes parking operators change their pricing based on external factors, such as the time of the day or week, or the occurrence of special events such as sports games and concerts, in order to attract customers over their competitors.
For consumers, there are several sources of frustration related to parking. Sometimes consumers are not able to find a parking spot, even in a paid garage, which causes them to waste time and fuel. Some studies estimate that up to 47,000 gallons of gas are wasted per month in major metropolitan areas while consumers are driving around looking for parking spots. Similar studies estimate that up to 30% of city traffic is due to consumers looking for parking. Another challenge that faces consumers is that payment acceptance mechanisms vary widely and may not suit a consumer's needs. Many parking structures require cash—and some, such as those with old parking meters, require actual coins. Some of the more antiquated systems have consumers stuff bills into a slot of a lockbox. Others have central payment kiosks, which have their own sets of problems, such as credit card reader malfunctions, confusing user interfaces, and long lines. Once a consumer has figured out how to pay for parking, an additional source of frustration is paying too much for parking itself. Signs are often confusing and hard to read, and though consumers often try to make the most practical and economical parking decision, many consumers know the annoying feeling of walking out of a parking garage in which they just parked, only to discover that just across the street was a parking structure that was closer to their intended destination and also a few dollars cheaper.
For parking operators, trying to maximize revenue has its own challenges. Once a parking structure is built, there is little that can be done to change the physical attributes of the space if challenges arise due to congestion in the area or due to problems within the structure itself. For example, if a new office building gets built next to the parking structure when there was not one before, the design of the structure may not be ideal to handle the influx of customers during certain morning hours. If the top floor of a parking structure is poorly designed to allow cars to exit, a bottleneck could be created that affects cars parking on the floor below. Changing prices to adapt to special events or weather can be a challenge as well, with most operators simply guessing what price would be best at a particular time in order to maximize revenue. Effective enforcement can also be an issue, requiring a human parking enforcement officer to consistently patrol a lot. If the method of enforcement is having an officer patrol each spot and then check to see if the spot has been paid for, there will inevitably be delay between when a car's time expires and when the parking enforcement officer discovers the payment violation. Therefore, several needs exist relating to gathering and using parking data.